Sachin Yadav, 26, spent his teens worshipping cricketer Jasprit Bumrah. Then along came Neeraj Chopra. And everything changed.
At 19, Yadav ditched his fast-bowling ambitions for javelin. And in September 2025, he paid a fitting tribute to his hero at the very venue where Neeraj Chopra became ‘the’ Neeraj Chopra with his Olympic gold in 2021 — Tokyo’s National Stadium.
Even as Chopra relinquished his World Championship crown by finishing eighth at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on September 18, ending a podium streak that lasted 2,566 days, Yadav surged ahead and challenged for a medal, only to miss it by a whisker and finish fourth. It was a twist few saw coming. But it was also an ideal illustration of the intangible impact Chopra has left on the Indian javelin scene.
If Tokyo 2021 was a seminal moment for Indian athletics, Tokyo 2025 was steeped in symbolism.
Beyond the medals he racked up in these four years, Chopra’s otherworldly run sparked a sporting movement. Yadav is a product of that storm.
Consider this:
From 2019 to 2024, the women’s participation in junior national javelin championships skyrocketed from 31 to 137, a staggering 125% spike.
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In men’s junior nationals in javelin, there was a 90% increase — from 39 in 2019 to 143 five years later. In these five years, the numbers in shotput — where India hasn’t won anything of note — fell from 54 to 38 in junior men and 62 to 39 in junior women.
This was a period when Chopra went from being a Commonwealth and Asian champion to one of the world’s biggest track and field superstars, including independent India’s first athletics Olympic gold medal winner.
To commemorate Chopra’s top-of-the-podium finish at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) earmarked August 7 as the National Javelin Day. The surge in numbers there too has been astonishing — from 700 in 2022, the competition’s first year, to 4,974 in 2025.
For Chopra, this trend feels “like a dream come true”. He says, “When I first started, javelin was a niche sport in India. To see so many young athletes now picking up the spear with such passion is something I carry with me every day. I feel a deep sense of pride witnessing this shift — the surge in participation, the growing number of Indian finalists at major global events, and the overall rise in the level of competition. It is a clear sign that Indian athletics is finally moving in the right direction and that we are no longer just participants on the world stage, but genuine contenders.”
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Chopra’s remarkable consistency inspired a generation of athletes from places traditionally not seen as the sport’s hub. At the National Javelin Day last August, the maximum participants came from Assam (955), followed by Telangana (629). The tiny Lakshadweep islands sent 532 throwers, whereas Jammu and Kashmir had nearly the same number of participants (150) as New Delhi (104) and Maharashtra (48) combined.
Batting for access to the sport at the grassroots level, Chopra adds, “It is vital that a child in a small village doesn’t just have the dream, but also the equipment, proper coaching and training facilities to make it a reality. If the system continues to improve and our young athletes get the right support at the right time, I truly believe India can produce a steady stream of world-class javelin throwers in the coming years.”
The relentless wave at the bottom of the pyramid is reflected in the rise in numbers at the top as well. At the World Championships this year, India was represented by four throwers, including Chopra and Yadav — the most from any single country.
Chopra says that the sport needs to “remain visible” to sustain the momentum. “We need more high-quality competitions in India, especially those that match world standards. Competing regularly at home allows our athletes to gain invaluable exposure, and experience without the logistical and mental pressure of travelling abroad for every single high-stakes event. This was the driving force behind launching the Neeraj Chopra Classic in 2025 (India’s first World Athletics Gold-level javelin event). By creating a world-class platform like that on home soil, we can bridge the gap between domestic talent and international excellence.”
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In a sporting ecosystem that isn’t always conducive to high performance, the javelin growth story is a consequence of timely interventions and policy tweaks. The National Javelin Day is one such example. The other is a children’s tournament, where plastic javelins are used.
“When Chopra won the Olympic gold, we decided that since this event is going well, we can’t let it start with him and finish with him,” says former AFI president and World Athletics vice-president Adille Sumariwalla.
“So, we said let us celebrate the National Javelin Day, which will also be an incentive for your children to take part. This is what Finland does, actually; a national javelin day where people from all over come and throw. We have told each state, please conduct this event (National Javelin Day), and now we will take the National Javelin Day to all districts one by one,” he adds.
Ahmad Jawad, the founding secretary of the Lakshadweep Athletics Association and now chief coach, said the 532 throwers who represented the Union Territory at the National Javelin Day were from the 10 inhabited islands. “It seems like a big number. But since we have a strong sports culture, this will only rise,” Jawad says. “There is a lot of untapped potential here. The association was formed just six years ago, but there is passion there.”
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The AFI has also made the sport more accessible by being innovative with the equipment at the grassroots level.
At the National Inter-District Junior Athletics Meet (NIDJAM) in May 2022, the AFI introduced a children’s javelin competition. To prevent injury, plastic javelins weighing approximately 300 grams, as opposed to 800-gram javelins that Chopra and other male throwers use, were used. At the Under-16 and Under-18 level, female athletes use a 500-gram javelin — the standard is 600 grams, while male throwers use a 600-gram one in Under-16 and 700-gram variant in Under-18.
“While we want to look at children as potential medalists, we don’t want early specialisation. At the same time, we want to make sure they aren’t over-trained,” says Sumariwalla. “So, we changed the javelin to a children’s javelin (plastic). We are ensuring that they are not doing heavy javelin throws when they are 14 years old. We want their muscle groups to be developed. We scientifically looked at it.”
In 2024, there were 601 throwers in the girls Under-14 category alone. “At one of the NIDJAM meets,” Sumariwalla beams, “there were close to 3,000 participants across age groups.”
Not bad for a junior tournament; a Chopra-inspired jave-lution.
